Summer jobs at Parakey
parakey.com
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"When people need to call their "computer friend" in 2007 to install a program, scan a document, burn a CD or show a picture to a friend, there is a problem." So is the main aim of parakey to give applications the ability to interface seamlessly with the web? Or is it more about the simplicity of web 2.0 design?
In other words, how critical is the problem of computer usability amongst 50 year olds when children today are being "organically" raised in basic computer literacy?
Second, I was raised on computers. Just because I know how to use them doesn't mean I like using them. In fact, I generally find computers to be a pain in the ass.
Finally, I suspect the problem of usability amongst 50 year olds is a very critical problem amongst 50 year olds :)
I would agree that the problem of usability amongst 50 year olds is very critical to 50 years olds. However, I'm interested in how Parakey plans to deliver their product message (and distribution!) to a mostly uneducated web demographic -- especially a group with a more narrow use case when browsing the web.
It's awesome to see you on here, Blake. :)
As far as distribution, a customized hardware solution that will deliver Parakey's software experience doesn't really address the distribution problem. How do you get the mythical machines distribution themselves? Besides, hardware is a very different business with different metrics than the software game...attacking both at the same time would be extremely difficult.
So my question still stands at how would you get the software out to the mainstream, especially those who aren't very web-literate to begin with? I'm thinking about people like my parents who only use their browser to check Hotmail, read reviews, and maybe do some basic shopping. They would certainly adopt a new computing platform that was more intuitive, but how do you get them to do this? The same folks who would greatly benefit from Parakey's work is the same demographic that still uses Internet Explorer.
Your approach to viral distribution sounds very complicated.
How do you go about placing ads on something that's supposed to ease the computing experience? On top of that, would you need to login using your account at a specific IP address to gain the "credit" for installing the app? How would the system know who to "credit?"
PR is a very important way of marketing for Granmos. You can do a local newspaper press release. Write an article about how a college student is making it easy for his grandparents to use computers. Send it to every local newspaper in America. Get new users. This is the kind of thing you can do for free, but professional PR people do it better.
Maybe I could do something really crazy, like giving stock options to anyone who acts as an evangelist or developer.
As for advertising, it would mainly be cost-per-action style ads. Affiliate links for online shops and such. You can do things like pitch a free magazine subscription offer at users. Those affiliate programs can pay $5 per action. Also there's the money you get when someone searches Google through your site. The important thing is to stick to advertisements that have some kind of benefit for the user.
Tracking the referrals isn't a hard problem. You could distribute Granmos live CDs with your new users automatically tracked to you. Otherwise, when a new account is created, fill in the referral box on the signup page.
This would mean reviewing the actual use case and realizing that PR saying your software is easy to use isn't too compelling. Distributing CDs seems very 90s AOL, costs quite a bit of money, and doesn't have a great conversion rate.
Sorry, rms, if I've come across as too critical -- I'm just trying to ask the questions that need to be asked. It's a mental workout of sorts.
I'm still very excited to hear more about Parakey -- it's about time computers became useful!
I applied to Y Combinator with a very similar idea to Parakey, only entirely web-based. I got an interview last funding round, but PG and company weren't convinced we had solved the design problem.
You can see a quick design demo at www.granmos.com/420 (best viewed in full screen in Firefox). If nothing else, I think it shows how easy it can be to provide a compelling, intuitive experience to an older computer novice. I'm very excited to see what Parakey actually looks like, I see the design as much more important to their success than their cross-platorm development technology.
Blake, one thing that is necessary for you to succeed with people older than 70 is to provide alternatives to the mouse. People over a certain age just don't get it; it's too hard cognitively to translate movement on the horizontal plane to motion on a vertical screen. Touch screens are ideal but expensive. Track balls are better, because they more concretely separate the action of clicking and moving.
We were actually referring to some smaller companies that have announced or launched recently, such as Slingshot.
To be clear, I don't think the issue is having more apps, but having great apps. In our experience, luring users who can then lure developers is the best way to break the chicken-and-egg problem that any new platform faces. We also believe that building the apps and the platform concurrently yields a better platform.